- Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 Game director Chris Cross said the sequel would feature four-player co-op because it was “highly requested” and “it just feels better.”
- Cross says four players also have ‘challenges’
- Balancing the ‘attention economy’ is ‘fundamentally a constant challenge for us’
Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 Game director Chris Cross explained why Cold Iron Studios decided to make the sequel in four-player co-op, but acknowledged that it came with some hurdles during development.
Speaking in an interview with TechRadar Gaming at Summer Game Fest 2026, Cross said one of the “challenges” of moving to four players was balancing the “attention economy” and the multitude of assets and effects on screen at the same time.
“There’s four times as much stuff to put on screen,” he said, “like more enemies and stuff, because if everyone focuses their fire on something, it’s going to melt, [so] Managing enough goals and distractions for the team is basically a constant challenge for us. »
Elite Squad was two-player, but when asked why the team decided to make the successor four-player instead of three-player, as is typically found in other online cooperative shooters, Cross revealed that it was for two reasons. First, it was “highly requested” by fans, and second, “four works better in a PVE game because you can do two and two.”
“You can have even more combinatorial abilities, mixing and matching, but it’s also a bit reminiscent of four-player split-screen, right? Like it felt good to have co-op before.”
Cross went on to say, “The problem for us, though, is if you go as a threesome and one person splits up, it ends up being a liability. Whereas, [with four players] you can do two and two now. Another thing, though, is the sort of three-person convention that I think came from Battle Royale games, like trios. [in] Apex Legends, Fortniteetc.
“It seems like a good, good mix for a solitary unit, but I just like four, [it] It’s just better… A rifle team of four feels good having four slots with five classes and possibly six. The opportunities that mix and match are much greater than three. »
Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 doesn’t have a release date yet, but it will launch on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, and PC.
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